Things We Lost in the Fire
by snipp.snapp.snute
Summary: Back in District 12 they would never have had more than illegal strawberry sales and the occasional insult. But this was a whole new world... Primarily Gadge centric, but lots of Johanna too!
1. Prisoners of War

**Author's Note:** If I owned any part of _The Hunger Games_, _Mockingjay _would have gone very differently and Gale and Madge would definitely have gotten their happy endings together. Seeing as this did not happen, the logical conclusion would probably be that I don't in fact own anything you recognize.

**THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE**

**Chapter One: Prisoners of War**

"M-ms. Mason? H-how can I h-help y-you?" the nurse stuttered, clearly startled and more than slightly overwhelmed by the arrival of the infamous victor in the make-shift psychiatric ward of the biggest hospital in the former Capitol. Or perhaps it was still the Capitol? No one had managed to agree on a new one, or on anything else for that matter. The fact that Katniss was completely out of commission in District 12 after executing that bitch Coin certainly wasn't helping to move things along. Johanna couldn't help but resent the younger woman for tearing the world to pieces and then having no involvement in putting them back together. But then Katniss was falling apart and not even trying to put her own pieces back together, so maybe she could forgive her…eventually…

"Don't call me that!" Johanna snarled, staring down the woman in front of her. Pretty. Nervous. Everything about her screamed helplessness, making her exactly the sort of person the District 7 native hated. "You can stay out of my way!" she hissed, before stomping down the hallway.

The nurse didn't even try to stop her.

If Johanna had been anyone else, she might've at least asked for some assistance in finding the former prisoners of the Capitol being treated in the hospital, but she was nothing if not stubborn, and as much as she hated having to ask for help in any situation, she absolutely refused to ask for help from people without her respect and for such a stupid reason. As such, she'd now spent a week wandering in and out of Capitol hospitals searching for someone she wasn't even entirely certain existed.

"They're getting reading for transfers already?" a low male voice inquired dubiously from somewhere behind Johanna.

Turning, she saw two men with piles of charts in their hands making their way down the hallway while conversing as quietly as they could. They weren't quiet enough to ward off eavesdropping by a woman desperate for information who'd three times spent days on end distinguishing every last sound around her, knowing it could mean the difference between life and death. And if they were talking about transfers…they definitely had information she wanted.

After the Capitol had fallen to the rebels, hundreds of political prisoners had been discovered and sent to various hospitals for treatment, but with riots happening daily throughout Panem, there was a constant influx of new patients to the superior medical facilities of its former Capitol, and there was less and less room to house prisoners of war who were now physically fine but might never recover mentally. As such, plans had begun to transfer as many of these prisoners as possible to hospitals and other facilities in their home districts, though even this process would end up taking years as many of the districts were in need of massive rebuilding, and identifying the prisoners had become no small issue. President Snow had been careful not to allow any record of who was being tortured at his command, and most of the prisoners were themselves incapable of providing any information about their lives before captivity. Pictures were being circulated throughout the country, but it seemed hopeless that they would find their way into the hands of those who could identify their lost loved ones.

Vaguely Johanna wondered if there was any chance someone from her previous life was out there somewhere. Her mom or her brother perhaps… She suppressed the thought rapidly, refusing to allow herself for even a moment to dream of a reality that would never be.

"Who're you off to see now?" the older half of the pair she'd been following asked his companion, his voice pulling Johanna out of her thoughts and back into the real world.

The younger doctor frowned slightly. "The girl from 12…" he muttered, a bitterness Johanna couldn't comprehend filling his eyes.

"The pretty one...again…" the older man snorted, causing Johanna to grimace. "Figures I get to tour the freak show while you spend every day bonding with our very own Miss Panem. You Heavensbees were born under all the right stars, weren't you?"

The callousness of his words sent a ripple of fury through Johanna, and it was all she could do not to launch herself at him and let him feel just how much she hated everything about the Capitol and everyone in it. She forced herself to calm down, knowing that she couldn't allow herself to be kicked out of this hospital, or worse yet, admitted to it, when she could feel that she was right on the edge of finding exactly what she'd been looking for since she'd last spoken to Peeta.

Surprisingly the younger doctor…Heavensbee…didn't look too pleased with his companion either. "I feel like I haven't made any progress with her at all…" he muttered, that bitterness Johanna couldn't quite interpret showing even more intensely in his eyes. "Some days I feel like I do and then the next… It's worse than just not remembering things… It's like she remembers a whole life that never happened, and she doesn't know what's real and what isn't, and I don't either… Unless she meets someone who knew her before, I don't think she has any chance at recovery…"

"That doesn't seem likely though does it?" the other doctor replied. "There aren't that many left from 12, right? And none of them seem to be looking for her…" He was quiet for a moment before adding, "Such a shame…she really is beautiful… Could've had quite a life if it weren't for all this…"

Johanna decided right then that if she ever got the chance she would kill this man.

The two doctors finally parted ways, Johanna stalking down the hallway after the younger of the pair.

When he reached his destination, he knocked on the door but didn't wait for a response before entering. Johanna immediately rushed over to the door and peered in through the window, trying to locate the allegedly pretty patient from District 12.

"Hey there," she heard the doctor's voice. "Do you remember me?" he asked gently.

"Gaius…" came the soft reply, and Johanna could feel in her bones that she _knew_ this voice.

"That's right," he said, hesitating a moment before he asked, "Do you remember you?"

"Maysilee," the girl answered without a beat. She stepped forward and Johanna saw the girl who'd been haunting her for months now. She saw the tiny blonde she remembered seeing tortured and hearing scream. She saw the girl she'd been convinced was only a figment of her imagination until that conversation with Peeta during which he confessed to imagining her too.

"Or Madge…" she whispered, "I'm sorry, I don't know which…"

* * *

**Teaser for Chapter Two (Poor Mad Girl):**

"Even when District 12 is rebuilt…she won't be able to go back. Not with the Mockingjay…" Dr. Heavensbee explained.

"Katniss…" Johanna interrupted with a snarl, "her name is Katniss…"

The two stood in tense silence until Johanna asked, "So what happens to her?"

* * *

**Another Author's Note: **Thank you for reading! As you can see we have no Gale yet, but he'll be making an appearance before too long. Meanwhile, who doesn't love Johanna? If you have some time, I'd love a review to let me know what you think so far and help me improve the quality of my work.


	2. Poor Mad Girl

**THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE**

**Chapter Two: Poor Mad Girl**

Johanna listened at the door for over an hour. The doctor's session with the girl who couldn't even remember her own name started out innocuously enough. They talked about her house back in District 12. It had been big and white and always so empty but she couldn't remember why. She remembered a woman who looked like her and slept most of the time, but she didn't know who the woman was. They talked about music, and it was like the girl didn't have any memory loss at all. She said that she'd first learned to play the piano when she was five years old. She remembered the way the keys felt under her fingers and the name of her favorite composer. She remembered returning home after school every day and immediately sitting down to play and sometimes doing so until it was time for dinner.

A strange silence fell over the pair, and although the blonde girl didn't seem to notice anything, Johanna could see the reluctance in the doctor's expression, as though there was something he knew he needed to bring up with her but would give nearly anything to avoid.

Finally he asked, "And can you tell me anything about school?"

The blonde's face took on a look of concentration. "I was good at math…" she said slowly, "but I liked reading class more… I didn't like history very much…" She trailed off.

The doctor's expression was nervous as he pressed on. "What about friends? Do you remember who you spent time with at school?" he asked quietly.

"I…people didn't like me very much…" she began, looking much more confused than she had previously. "But there was one girl I ate lunch with… I think her name…"

Suddenly, so suddenly in fact that even Johanna was startled, the girl started shaking. "NO!" she screamed, "NO! KATNISS WAS NOT MY FRIEND! KATNISS BURNED THE DISTRICT! SHE KILLED EVERYONE!" The shaking turned to thrashing, and the doctor moved forward swiftly to try and calm her down, but she ended up hitting him in the face.

"Maysilee," he spoke in a soothing tone, "Maysilee you have to calm down."

The blonde pushed away from him and ended up hitting her head against her bed frame.

"Madge," the doctor tried again, "Madge, please just settle down. We don't have to talk any more if you don't want to, but I won't leave you like this."

"She burned them!" the girl continued to shriek frantically, her eyes filling with tears. "She burned everyone!"

Johanna watched as the doctor removed a syringe from his pocket with a deep sigh and stepped towards the blonde. She knew he was going to sedate the girl, and then he would most likely leave the room, so she moved away from the door and hid herself behind a supply shelf. She knew she needed to talk to this man about the girl she'd finally found and the scene she'd just witnessed, but it wasn't a conversation that was going to happen in the middle of the hallway.

Sure enough the doctor emerged from the room after a few minutes, and Johanna followed him from a safe distance, taking care to avoid being seen by other doctors and nurses as much as possible.

She had to wait through therapy sessions with three more patients before he returned to his office. He'd barely even shut the door behind him when she marched inside, not bothering to knock.

The doctor looked irritated as he whirled around to face her, but his expression quickly transformed to one of confusion. "Johanna Mason?" he inquired. "I can't say I ever expected to see you here…"

"In the hospital," she drawled, a smirk playing on her lips. "I suppose I am rather good at avoiding injury."

"The best I've ever seen, I think," he agreed. "but I meant in the Capitol…"

The smirk dropped from her face instantaneously. "This isn't the Capitol" she snarled.

He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with her reaction, and Johanna vaguely wondered if he had any more sedatives hiding in his pockets. There weren't a lot of people who took possible threats from victors of the Hunger Games so lightly, and she wasn't just any victor.

"No? Then what is it?" he inquired lightly.

Her eyes wandered to the medical degree hanging on his office wall seeking confirmation of a detail in the back of her mind, and she was not disappointed. "What's your relationship to Plutarch Heavensbee, Gaius?" she sneered.

"Familial," the doctor retorted, his frame suddenly wrought with tension.

Johanna's lips twitched for a moment, but she suppressed her smirk. "I would never have guessed," she scoffed. "But you're going to have to do better than that."

All traces of humor were gone from the doctor's countenance as he announced, "I'm not answering any of your questions until you tell me why you're in my office."

Johanna shrugged, drawling, "It's cute that you think so, but that's not really how I operate. You're going to tell me everything I want to know, and I'm going to tell you whatever I feel inclined to share and nothing more. Otherwise you can officially consider yourself my enemy, and I'm sure you've seen just how well that usually works out for people."

To his credit, the doctor didn't look intimidated as he spat, "Plutarch Heavensbee is my father, but somehow I don't think that's what you came here to ask."

Well that was certainly not what she'd expected to hear. Johanna found herself inspecting the young doctor for traces of the former Gamemaker. It was quite a stretch of the imagination, but there was something in the younger man's face that made the relationship seem plausible, and she was inclined to believe him anyway. After all, who in their right mind would want to claim Plutarch Heavensbee as their father if it weren't true?

Ending her analysis of the doctor, Johanna explained, "I wanted to ask you a few questions about your patient from District 12."

If she thought Gaius Heavensbee had been tense before, it was nothing compared to the rigidness of his posture and sternness of his expression after that announcement. "I can't imagine how you even know about her," he spoke lowly, "let alone what you would have to ask."

"We're friends…" Johanna retorted, crossing her arms in front of her chest and glaring at him as if to challenge him to deny her statement.

"You're lying," he responded without a beat. "She's never been out of District 12, and you've never been there except during your Victory Tour, and I doubt you stopped to chat with a shy twelve-year-old then."

Johanna just shrugged. "And how are you so sure she's never been out of 12? I heard your little session with her this morning… She doesn't even remember her own name…" she scoffed.

The doctor hesitated for a moment, obviously caught between revealing confidential information and forcing Johanna to admit that she was lying. He might as well not even bother, since she was going to get the information from him eventually. Johanna couldn't help but wonder if he'd come to that same conclusion when he explained, "She might be confused about some of the details of her past because she's got memories that conflict with one another, but it doesn't mean she knows nothing at all, and there's nothing in any of her memories that suggests she was ever outside of 12 before the bombing…or for that matter, that she ever even met you…"

This time Johanna failed to suppress her smirk. "Okay so we didn't meet in the traditional sense of the word… But I was imprisoned right next to her for months, and listening to a person's screams day after day as they're tortured must make you friends of some sort, no?"

The doctor's expression took on a desperation Johanna had been unprepared for. "She was with you?" he breathed, "But then why didn't she end up in 13 when you were all rescued?"

"She was with us in the beginning," Johanna muttered in response. "But one day, they took her out of her cell and never brought her back... I half thought I'd imagined her until Peeta mentioned something a few weeks ago, and even then there was no guarantee she was real and certainly none that she was alive…"

"Peeta Mellark," Dr. Heavensbee stated in a tone Johanna couldn't quite identify. It was sort of like something had just been confirmed for him. "She was tortured alongside Peeta Mellark…" He paused a moment, staring at Johanna with an intense look in his eyes. She was uncomfortable with his scrutiny and had to force herself not to lash out at him.

"You said you were her friend and you've obviously worked pretty hard to find her…" Dr. Heavensbee stated after a while, "So I'm going to assume you want to help her…"

Johanna nodded almost imperceptibly. Even before she'd been a tribute, it hadn't been in her nature to be very helpful towards others, but there was something about the blonde girl that made Johanna seek her out, and now that same something was pushing her to figure out why Maysilee/Madge couldn't remember who she was and whether or not there was any way to fix it.

"Is it true what they say about him?" the doctor inquired. "That when he first got to 13 he attacked the Mockingjay because his memories had been tampered with so much that he thought he hated her?"

Johanna hesitated a moment. She knew it was only one man who made a living keeping people's secrets (among other things) and that most of the public knew the rumors anyway, but she was reluctant to go airing her friend's private business, especially behind her back. And Katniss was her friend even if Peeta wasn't…

Somehow she found herself nodding anyway.

The doctor had that look again, as if she'd just confirmed something very important for him. "Whatever Snow's men did to accomplish that, it was complicated," he stated lowly. "Far too complicated for Peeta Mellark to have been the first person they tried it with."

"What are you saying?" Johanna asked with a frown.

"I think that girl was one of their test cases…that whatever's going on with her memories is the same as what went on with his or awfully close to it… Our sessions are always fine until something makes her think of the Mockingjay…" he explained.

Johanna's eyes widened as she took in this information. On the one hand, Maysilee's/Madge's therapy session from earlier that morning reminded her an awful lot of the way Peeta had acted during his first days in 13… But Peeta had been the boy Katniss loved, even if she wasn't sure of it at the time... Making him hate Katniss had hurt her deeply… What reason was there to make some random girl from 12 hate her too?

"Why are you so sure?" Johanna asked dubiously. "I'll buy that Snow's dogs needed test subjects, but why her? You said she remembers 12 being bombed…that was before they even had Peeta… Why go through the trouble of capturing just her and then making her hate Katniss?"

Dr. Heavensbee was quiet for a moment, pondering over his next words. "I've never been good with names," he explained finally, causing Johanna to raise an eyebrow in confusion as to what relevance this had to the torture of the blonde girl. "But I've always been good with faces. The first time I saw her in this hospital I remembered seeing her during the 74th Games…during the interviews… They talked to her about the Mockingjay and she said that Katniss Everdeen was the bravest, strongest person she'd ever known and the best friend she'd ever had… She said that there was no one who deserved to come home more… That was why I asked her about the Mockingjay in our first session, and when she responded…the way she always responds…all I could think of was the rumors about Peeta Mellark…"

There was a long silence between the two. Ultimately the doctor was the one to break it, asking, "What did they do for him in 13? I keep bringing up the Mockingjay with her, but it obviously isn't working and I just don't know what else to try…"

Johanna hesitated before saying, "It was a long time before he stopped trying to attack her on sight… And that was with all these people there every day telling him how much he loved her… With her visiting him and proving that she wasn't…the person he thought she was… And there was another girl from their District who was his friend when they were kids…she helped a lot…" She paused briefly before adding, "But he still isn't all the way better… He has fits… That's why he's still here even now that Katniss is gone…"

Dr. Heavensbee sighed deeply. "I was afraid of that…" he muttered. "I don't see how I can do the same thing for her…not when the Mockingjay is the only person alive who definitely knows her and her reactions are as volatile as they are…"

"Peeta knows her too…" Johanna spoke in an unusually soft tone. "But he's still working through his own memory problems and putting them in a room together is liable to make everything worse for them both… But maybe when he's better…"

The doctor shrugged slightly, and Johanna frowned as she remembered another piece of information.

"Is she going to be moved? When the transfers start?" the brunette victor hissed.

Dr. Heavensbee's eyes widened in surprise. "I don't know how you know about that…" he stated. "But no…she isn't going anywhere any time soon… For now we're only planning to move patients with known family and friends to their home districts if there are facilities in place where they can continue being treated... And even when District 12 is rebuilt…she won't be able to go back the way she is now… Not when it could put the Mockingjay in danger…"

"Katniss…" Johanna interrupted with a snarl, suddenly irritated with the man's continued insistence at referring to the younger woman by her title. "Her name is Katniss…"

The two stood in tense silence until Johanna asked, "So what happens to her?"

Dr. Heavensbee shrugged. "Hopefully she stays here until she recovers…"

Johanna knew as well as he did that the likelihood of that was diminishing daily.

* * *

**Teaser for Chapter Three (Enemy of My Enemy):**

"You're a victor…I thought drinking away your sorrows came with the territory…" Gale scoffed.

"That's not a reason for me to go drink with you," Johanna snarled.

"I suppose you'd prefer Peeta or Haymitch then?" he taunted in reply.

* * *

**Author's Note: **So that's Chapter Two; I hope it met with your hopes/expectations. Thanks to those who followed or favorited the last chapter, and an extra special thank you to my awesome reviewers daisyfields, barbarella-1980, and JabberJayJelly! I really appreciate your taking time to give me some feedback and am so glad you're enjoying the direction of the story so far. Stay tuned for next time in which Johanna argues with Haymitch and Gale makes his appearance, and if you have a moment, please do take the time to let me know what you think so far.


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